I live on a hilltop in Arkansas with my husband, kids, parents, father-in-law and a rotating cast of animals. The current pets are rescues: a tabby cat, a chocolate Lab, a box turtle, an Australian python and a bearded dragon. My husband met someone in a vet’s office with a son going off to college and wanting to get rid of the snake. He found the bearded dragon sunning on the bike path. It was May, near some college housing—maybe its owner got bored and decided to dump it? My husband, who keeps spare terraria in our garage, popped the lizard in his pannier. We named it Spike.
In the past, we have had a wine carafe of tadpoles, scooped from a puddle, as a dining table centrepiece. Twice, native snakes collected in our yard have given birth in our living room. At one point, twelve baby king snakes were living in our window seat. My husband requisitioned half the Tupperware and punched holes in the lids: each egg needed its own hatching habitat or it might get eaten...
Padma Viswanathan is a playwright, novelist and translator. Her second novel, The Ever After of Ashwin Rao (Random House, 2014), was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. She teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Arkansas.
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